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Carol Morehart, right, and her sister Joyce

Carole Morehart of Salem sends us details of her adventurous trip that will get any savvy-shopper's head spinning with dreams of summer yardsales and yearnings for Black Friday:

My sister Joyce and I set out on Wednesday, August 5 to the biggest yard sale in America: a 4-day, 654 mile extravaganza that stretches from Ohio to Alabama along a single road. (When Joyce saw it in the May 31 "Parade," she said "Let's GO!!!")

We drove directly to Chatanooga, Tennessee, using the GPS. Our motel was not in the greatest part of town, but outside the window we saw Rt. 27 that we were to take to Rt. 127, so off we went the next day.

We encountered many sales on Signal Mtn., only later to realize the 4 hours we spent in that area were mostly antique dealers, and not many bargains! Also parking was at a premium - alway salong a narrow road and one such area we parked a half a mile from the sale. As the day wore on we realized we didn't have lodging for the night, and bypassed a lot of great sales to get to Crossville - about 40 miles away ... We were stuck in  a very large traffic jam, and realized we should call ahead (remember, we're over 65 and new at this) so we found the last room in a Best Western and reserved it for two nights. We were tired and only covered about 20 miles of shopping, but we spent the night and got up early only to realize we were in a different time zone - instead of 6:30 a.m., it was 5:30 a.m.

After breakfast at the hotel, we drove back down Rt. 127 where we left off the day before - and proceeded north, feeling better that we had a secured room for the night - each day we were in the HOT Tennessee sun and spent a good eight hours shopping. We decided that night to reserve one more night there and travel north as far as we could make it the next day.

We discovered in the northern section, there were numerous field parking areas and port-a-potties, and several fundraising food areas that we hadn't encountered on the first two days. So all in all, we traveled about 100 miles in 3 days and we'd had enough.

Sunday morning, we checked out to find the hotel had refunded the third night stay. That made us happy. Crossville is right on I40, which turns into I81, so we had a direct shoot back to Salem - except we saw a Smoky Mountain flea market along the road and HAD to stop. We spent a good two-plus hours there before arriving home.

My sister is from Pennsylvania and wanted to shop in the Salem area on Monday, so we went to the area antique shops and malls and found more here than we did on the "Biggest Yard Sale in America." That doesn't mean we wouldn't do it again - the fun and fellowship we had together was priceless.

ps. If we decide to do it again we could stay one night in Crossville, head north and get a room in the Lexington, Kentucky area and explore further north. We'll see!